Beratlı Avrupa Tüccarı (Patent holder Europe merchants) system was instituted in 1802 within the parameters of the Ottoman classical world as a result of the Porte’s recognition of the state’s regulatory role in economic development and of the demands of non-Muslim Ottoman merchants for freedom and security in their activities. The system offered protection and privileges to the merchants holding the patent and the number of merchants operating under it increased steadily. Based on 130 imperial orders kept in a special ahkam defteri (record book) in the Ottoman archives, this paper examines how the Avrupa Tüccarı used the Ottoman institutions as a privileged class between the years 1835 and 1839. The paper also studies the activities of the local Islamic courts and the imperial court at the palace (Arz Odası) with regard to Avrupa Tüccarı. The relationship between the sultan and the local Islamic courts will also be a part of this analysis. Moreover, this paper investigates dispute resolution at the Customs Office according to the mercantile customs and its interactions with the Islamic legal system and the Porte. It is shown that these institutions operated within the larger framework of the Islamic law (şer-i şerif), which was what the Ottomans perceived as ‘‘the law’’, and that all these courts had to rely on the extensive network of Islamic courts for the execution of their decisions. Therefore, rather than a separation between the spheres of these institutions, there was a fusion. However, intra-Avrupa Tüccarı disputes seems to have been resolved within the group, perhaps under the supervision of the deputy merchants. Subsequently, the complaints of the Avrupa Tüccarı about intervention in their estates and properties, and over-taxation are examined. While the system might have not provided full security and freedom for the Avrupa Tüccarı and a complete protection of their estates upon their deaths as envisaged at the time of the establishment of the system by the Porte to prevent Ottoman merchants from seeking foreign protection, it certainly provided a number of judicial privileges, advantageous taxation and more stable property rights. Albeit with certain limits, the institutional framework of the Avrupa Tüccarı system seems to have worked well and the merchants operating under this system thrived.

In Ottoman parlance the term Acem tüccarı referred to merchants from Iran; many if not most of these traders were Armenians, partly because Shah ‘Abbas I (r. 1587-1629) had decided that only these people were to market the raw silk which in the later years of his reign, this monarch had made into a royal monopoly. While by about 1600 Armenian pre-eminence among the Acem tüccarı was well established, in the early 1700s some Iranian Muslim traders also entered the Ottoman domains. The sometimes enormous registers in the section Maliyeden müdevver in the Prime Minister’s archive in Istanbul, dated to the 1700s and now recorded as Maliye Ahkâm Defterleri, contain some intriguing information on the business ventures and socio-political organization of the Acem tüccarı. By the early 1700s these people must have been in some difficulty, given the decline in Iranian raw silks exported to Ottoman Anatolia. However the Acem tüccarı apparently were able to diversify, focusing on textiles ‘made in Iran’. Given the wide range of Acem tüccarı commerce in often outlying Ottoman provinces, the traders apparently sought for support from the shah of Iran. Especially preserving the inheritances of deceased traders intact would have been quite difficult unless the Acem tüccarı both Muslim and Christian could invoke official backing. Thus the ‘chief merchants’ of both Muslim and Armenian groups of traders came to the Ottoman Empire with documents that showed them to be ‘representatives of the shah’. The documents analysed here are significant also because they show that organization in mercantile communities backed by an outside force, which we often assume to have been a specialty of Europeans, existed among the subjects of Safavid and post-Safavid Iranian shahs as well. Possibly these rulers were willing to grant protection because the Armenian merchants of New Julfa interceded for their less prominent colleagues; but at the moment, the political background of this arrangement remains unknown.

Musta’man merchants were subjects of European nations operating within the Ottoman Empire who were provided safe passage and presence by the Porte through their holding of ahidnames. With the rights given by ahidnames, musta’man merchants were allowed to reside and trade within the Ottoman domains and to apply to Ottoman courts for litigation. While Venice and Genoa were the early beneficiaries of ahidnames, by the end of the 16th century France, England, and the Netherlands had strengthened their position in the Levantine markets by obtaining their own ahidnames. Musta’man merchants usually resolved internal disputes through the intermediation of their own consuls. However, according to the regulations stipulated in ahidnames, they were required to apply to the Ottoman courts for any disputes with Ottoman subjects. Examples of these cases may be found in Istanbul Sharia court records. A survey of 30 record books of Istanbul courts from the 17th century reveal that while 80% of the court appearances of the musta’man merchants were related to notary record keeping, 20%pertained to commercial litigation. Although most of the disputes were between musta’man merchants and Ottoman subjects, there were also examples of intra-musta’man litigation. Most of the records concerning musta’mans were related to credit relations, trade, taxation, and partnership issues. Moreover, suretyship and agency cases, which were required to be recorded in court, were also common. According to the ahidnames musta’man’s litigation with Ottoman subjects exceeding 4,000 akçes had to be adjudicated in the Imperial Council(Divan). However, many cases above 4,000 akçes were examined by local courts according to the Sharia and the stipulations delineated by ahidnames. In their Sharia court appearances, musta’man merchants frequently referred to ahidname articles about jurisdiction, documentary evidence, and special privileges. This gave them a clear advantage in their disputes with Ottoman subjects and often resulted in rulings in their favor. In addition, they supported their claims with fatwas from the office of the Grand Mufti. However, in maritime disputes, Ottoman judges occasionally appealed to maritime customs and provided solutions according to the customs of the musta’man merchants. The cases examined in this paper show that Ottoman judges were able to maintain their impartiality and protected the commercial activities of musta’man merchants, which would sometimes leave Ottoman subjects in less than favorable situations. Moreover, the Ottoman legal practices concerning the musta’man merchants was a synthesis of Sharia, in which ahidname stipulations and maritime customs displayed elements of legal pluralism

In the early modern era the Republic of Venice hosted a large cosmopolitan community of merchants from the sultan’s domains. In the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries probably it constituted the most important center of Ottoman commercial deployment in Western Europe. The Ottoman trade with Venice functioned under the legal framework of the capitulations (ahidnames). They were political and commercial agreements between the Ottoman and the Venetian government that enabled the creation of a coherent legal inter-imperial space within which subjects of both the polities could travel with ease. One of the most controversial aspects of these agreements is their alleged unilateralism. Most historians of the Ottoman capitulations, by focusing on their texts and on the Western trade in the Ottoman Empire, had argued that they were unilateral grants of privileges bestowed by the sultans to the subjects of a friendly European power and they did not contain any reference to reciprocity. However, a study of the intensive Ottoman trade with Venice and the attitude of the Ottoman authorities toward it undermines that assumption. In particular, an analysis of the numerous disputes between Ottoman merchants and Venetian subjects and authorities sheds light on the bilateral nature of the capitulations. These controversies arose mostly from frauds between commercial partners, quarrels over the payment of custom duties, and, above all, attacks of pirates in the Adriatic Sea. The archival series Documenti Turchi, Lettere e Scritture Turchesche, and Bailo a Costantinopoli located in the Venetian State Archives contain numerous Ottoman documents, ranging from sultan’s rescripts to legal documents issued by the Ottoman courts, concerning grievances of Ottoman subjects against Venetian subjects and authorities. These documents, alongside of the abundant Venetian documentation, above all the bailo’s correspondence from Istanbul (dispacci), allow the historians to reconstruct the circumstances of the disputes, the litigation between the Venetian and the Ottoman subjects and authorities, and the final settlement. During the negotiations between the two opposing sides the contents of the capitulations were the main source of contention. These negotiations and the support granted to the aggrieved merchants by the Ottoman authorities show that the latter did not only grant privileges to subjects of a foreign ruler but they excepted similar rights for their subjects trading abroad.

The period after 1839 is known as the Tanzimat (restructuring) era. The significance of this era is that the initiative for modernization came from government officials with the compliance of the sultan. Economically, the Tanzimat, which marked the beginning of one of the most important turning points of Turkish-Ottoman history, has been intensively discussed after its proclamation in 1839. The second half of the Ottoman nineteenth century observed clear “Eurocentric Business Enterprises” in Ottoman economic and commercial life, consisting mostly of railway projects, as European centered commercial relations within international markets expanded. Reforms and changes in the commercial law system after the Tanzimat saw an increase in market efficiency of Levantine merchants in Ottoman domestic and foreign trade. Among these Levantine merchants, who were effective in Ottoman trade life, one Hanson family, of English origin, attracted attention with their commercial relations and economic activities. Accordingly, Simpson Hanson (1803-1874) who came to Istanbul for the first time in 1825 and settled for the purpose of commerce, along with his son Henry James Hanson (1838-1935), who was born in Istanbul, together engaged in several commercial fields namely finance, railway construction, import and export. Due to their wide range of business interests, the Hanson Family and their company became prominent among all the Levantine merchants that played a key role in 19th century Ottoman trade. This paper examines different business practices within which Levantine merchants were involved in order to understand how they used Ottoman economic institutions as businessmen between the years 1839 and 1880. This study aims to answer broad questions about the Hanson Family’s role in Ottoman domestic and foreign trade by using primary sources in the Ottoman Archive, the English National Archive and Oxford University Saint Anthony’s College Middle East Center Archive. It will additionally draw from English and Turkish publications belonging to the a forementioned period. These business manners which were applied by the Hanson Company sheds light upon the activities of Levantine Merchants in the Ottoman Empire and their connections with statesmen through business partnerships after the Tanzimat era.